A Systemic Cognitive Approach To Grammatical Metaphor In News Reporting

The interpretation of the physical world relies mainly on the most important communicative system---verbal language in which the use of linguistic symbols was an epoch-making invention of our ancestors. The relationship between language and thought has been a hot issue in fields such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics. Recent developments in cognitive science and functional linguistics provide new perspectives to this relationship. Metaphor as a possibility for the construal of human experience has attracted researchers' attention since ancient Greece. Since then schools of theories appeared to tap this topic from such angles as rhetoric, cognition and pure linguistics. However, not much attention has been paid to this field as a dynamic actualization of meaning potentials. This thesis will try to integrate cognitive theories on metaphor with systemic functional approach. Its objective is to present a mechanism for metaphorical construal of experience that satisfies a reasonable criterion for metaphor, and simultaneously, is consistent with the existing theories of philosophy and linguistics that are intimately related to metaphor. In addition to the argument that grammatical metaphor is a major alternative for meaning generation and interpretation in news reporting, a further conclusion is reached that grammatical metaphor finds its way into the major cognitive processing of meaning potential as well as lexicogrammatical constructions.This thesis consists of six chapters. After introducing the achievements of contemporary research, Chapter One offers reviews on metaphor as trope of rhetoric in literature analysis in ancient philology; as a mechanism in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics; and as a creative alternative to congruent realization of meaning potentials in systemic-functional linguistics. It argues that metaphor plays an important role in expanding the creativity of grammatical constructions. On the one hand grammatical metaphor generates new grammatical structures and provides clues to participants of news reporting that some routine schemata of experience have been replaced, which greatly improves readability and information of news discourse. On the other hand grammatical metaphorical actualization of meaning potentials in news reporting is intimately relevant to the situational and linguistic contexts, and such a grammatical metaphorical alternative as opposed to its agnate counterparts is actually a consequence of choice in three metafunctional systems. A systemic-cognitivelinguistic approach to grammatical metaphor in news reporting is unavoidably dynamic in that it is concerned with changes in language and in thinking that take place in time. Changes can occur at various stages of the construction and interpretation of discourse. Grammatical metaphor is, therefore, creatively connected to the dynamic information processing in news report from a systemic-cognitive perspective.Chapter Two argues that metaphor can occur at either lexical or grammatical level. Cognitively, all metaphorical expressions are based on the conceptual mapping from one sphere to another; and accumulation of such metaphorical expressions leads to close relations between two originally unrelated fields which consequently increase the possibilities of language structures. However, this theory separates metaphor from the context which disintegrates the dynamic organization of news reporting. Whether a metaphorical expression is lexical or grammatical, there does not exist clear distinctions between them; because, fundamentally, they are both incongruent replacement of congruent or literal forms for the same or similar meaning potentials. Occurrence of grammatical metaphor in news reporting is to be explained in the three interactive and interrelated metafunctional systems, because choice in one system means respective choices in the other two systems for appropriate actualization of world experience in news reporting. In addition, the contradiction between cognitive approach and systemic-functional approach to metaphor may be eliminated if metaphor is viewed as both product and process in news reporting. Metaphor is a product because the consequence of choice among alternatives to meaning potential is actualized in lexicogrammatical structure. Metaphor is a process as the construction and interpretation of news reporting are dynamic linear operations.Chapter Three focuses on the analysis of news reporting as a specific genre of discourse from the metaphorical construction of information. Each news report can be viewed as a token of its type at macro level, because there are preset schemata for news reporting in an individual's experience for any world event. The reporter shoulders the responsibility of constructing scripts guided by these schemata. Meanwhile, he reorganizes all the data obtained from various sources such as eyewitnesses and correspondents. Grammatically, this processing involves grammatical metaphorical actualization of similar or same meaning potentials. The final actualization of world experience in news reporting, congruent or incongruent, islargely based on the consideration of guidelines of the social-political interest groups and knowledge schemata of information receivers. In addition, cognitive mapping and metaphorization of concepts and processes in news report must seek support from choices at a lexico-grammatical level for actualization in grammatical structures.Chapter Four takes clauses of news reporting as a representation of the world's experiences. In the generation and comprehension process of message, grammatical metaphorical realization at the clausal level plays a vital role in the dynamic encoding of news reporting. The mechanism and motivation for grammatical metaphor is studied, and a systemic-cognitive interpretation to such alternative is constructed. The packing of world events and unpacking of information in language form are undoubtedly instructed by the cognitive schemata and the background knowledge about social interaction of language users. It is an important principle for news reporting to be objective and faithful to the world event construed, but grammatical metaphorical realization of such event is evidently intentional or subjectified. Nominalization has been traditionally misunderstood as the major realization of grammatical metaphor, and is mainly studied within the ideational metafunctional scope. But we try to expand the field with the necessary involvement of interpersonal and textual functions. Thus the originally ignored meaning potential in nominalization can be disclosed.Chapter Five concentrates on grammatical metaphorical actualization of interpersonal and textual meaning potentials at clause level from the perspective of cognitive grammar and systemic-functional grammar. Grammatical metaphorical actualization of meaning potential, as compared with its agnate or congruent counterpart, can not be adequately explained simply at clausal level (micro research), nor is the sole grammatical transformation for packing of information sufficient. It involves the dynamic cognitive processing of input stimuli on both the reporters and readers. Actualization of interpersonal meaning should involve the participation of ideational system and textual system, as in news reporting. For the purpose of objectification the possibilities between the polarity of positive and negative are usually not realized directly (in congruent forms) through modal auxiliaries. Therefore, the consequence of such alteration is nominalization or changes in transitivity system; the change of thematic structure at clause level; and sometimes even at discourse level. Grammatical metaphors in textual system play an active role...